Do You Know What's in That?

            The logic of people trying to scare you on the internet… things that sound scary are bad for you. Of course, this is not always true. For instance, clowns are scary… okay, bad example. But, did you know that certain beta blockers can depress your heart rate? Sounds scary. It’s also kind of the whole point. In persons with heart failure, beta blockers can be used to slow their heart rate in order to evoke stronger, more efficient pumps of the heart. Oh, well that’s not so scary after all.

            It’s twisting the delivery of information or leaving out key contextual items in order to make it unnecessarily ominous that really ruins any credence of a story. Case in point, a news article I came across was tempting consumers of a particular beverage to abstain from it on the grounds that it contained an ingredient found in an insecticide. Oh dear, surly it must have negative health consequences then? Wait. On quick question. Is the ingredient in question actually one of the ingredients meant to kill the insects? Because it turns out, a chemical in many insecticides is found in almost every beverage. It’s called water. Make sure to watch out for that stuff.

            As for anyone who finds themselves reading something scary on the internet, keep in mind that we have regulatory bodies in charge of approving and overseeing ingredients and additives for precisely the reason of preventing poisons from being put in our foods. Are there shortcomings? Yes. Do things we thought were safe turn out to be dangerous upon further study? Of course. But by in large, if something turns out to be poisonous, it is probably not going to be approved for human consumption.

            As for anyone who happens to be a news source, particularly if it is a well-known, supposedly reputable news source, do the world a favor and take a pass on stories as obviously superfluous as these. There is clearly no case to be made here, no danger in the consumption of this beverage, and certainly no warrant for actual news coverage. So, fire the reporter that submitted it and I will be happy to take their place. But until then, I’ll be here. See you all next week.

            -AMS

What Costs More, a Handheld Computer or a Shiny Rock?

            Humanity has come a long way. We’ve come so far, in fact, that it has created a market for products that would have seemed absolutely ludicrous to early humans. Yet, here we are spending all of our hard-earned money on this stuff without giving it a second thought. What’s more, is that we are doing so alongside purchases of amazingly engineered products that would have astounded those same early humans. Let’s look at some examples, shall we?

Food and Diet

            Food has changed a lot under the influence of mankind. Selective growing has led to crops that are much more durable, flavorful, and convenient than ever before. And the advent of genetic modification has only further catalyzed the developments. We have pest resistant corn, seedless watermelons and grapes, fruits so sweet they may as well be candy. We are able to can and preserve food for literal years. You can eat food that was made years ago, and it will still be perfectly safe. Walk down a grocery store aisle and just remind yourself that starvation is a thing.

            You might say we’ve gotten pretty good at food. Perhaps too good. Last year in the U.S. diet products and services sold to the tune of 66 billion dollars. We have so much food that we have to pay people to help us eat it more responsibly. Again, remind yourself that starvation is a thing.

Exercise Equipment

            Along the lines of weight loss, let’s talk about exercise. It is good for your health in more ways than you could ever imagine, so of course exercise products are going to be a great market. Been to a gym lately? The machinery is pretty impressive, isn’t it? We figured out which actions target which muscles, then we developed precision equipment for the sole purpose of activating those muscles in the most efficient way possible.

            Now, sophisticated workout equipment is great, but you can still exercise with minimal equipment. Jogging, pushups, one armed burpees into a jump lunge, they all work great with no equipment. And of course, you have good old-fashioned dumbbells. Priced a dumbbell lately? Those things are expensive. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, it is a heavy object made for the sole purpose of lifting it up and down. Wait. Couldn’t I just do that with a rock or something?

Jewelry

            Speaking of rocks, we sure do love them, especially the shiny ones. Now jewelry is decorative, and while superfluous, it is not unfounded that someone would pay good money for something that looks nice for the sole purpose of looking nice. At least jewelry is used to decorate an individual personally, rather than sitting on a shelf just hoping to catch the eye of a passerby. My point is not in purchasing jewelry, but rather the valuing of different jewelry. Just like with food and exercise equipment, we have dissected jewelry down to its components. We learned what made it tick… especially if said jewelry were a watch. Then we figured out how to make it ourselves. You can get synthetic gems that look amazing. You can coat inexpensive metals to make them look like gold. “Wow!” said early human who has never known nice things, “Everyone must be wearing this stuff then.” Nope. It’s cheap. We want the real stuff that is expensive. Doesn’t matter if you can’t tell the difference from the appearance. Hell, white gold is plated over to make it white. The gold is all on the inside and you can’t even see it. But I’ll pay good money to make sure I get at least twelve karats of it. At least I’ll know the difference… deep down.

Yeah, us modern humans are kind of weird.

            -AMS

Justice!?!

            Did you know, that not too long ago, something horrible happened? It was all over the news. And it was all over Facebook, which for many people is the news despite it being a cesspool of misinformation and unfiltered verbal assaults. It seems that the criminal justice system that we all know and love was completely destroyed. Incidentally, I despise the American criminal justice system, but for the sake of this hyperbole, pretend like I love it.

            Yes, it is true. Gone are the days of innocent until proven guilty, passed are the trials of peers deciding if evidence is substantial beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of a crime for which there was reasonable suspicion that they committed in the first place. It seems now, all it takes is an accusation from a single person and your entire future is ruined. What kind of dystopian future will develop from such a precedent.

            By now you might have realized, that I am of course referring to Brett Kavanaugh, the aspiring jurist with his sights set on the supreme court, only to have his dreams ripped away from him at the last minute at the consequence of a single accu- Wait… I am being informed that Brett Kavanaugh actually was confirmed for the supreme court. In fact, as it turns out, there was an investigation, and insufficient evidence was found to corroborate the accusation to an acceptable degree of confidence. Huh… turns out a single accusation won’t actually ruin your life. Well, someone should tell Facebook. Ah well, on to the next order of business: How democratic politicians pretended to think that accusations of sexual assault merited an investigation, even when concerning an individual under consideration for what is arguably the most powerful position in the nation.

            -AMS

748... A new Outlook on Life

            If you read my entry from last week, you will recall that I devoted 398 words to convincing you that a person is “a collection of conditioned organs dynamically reacting to various stimuli.” And if you did not read my previous entry, please do so now. It’s okay… I’ll wait.

Finished yet? No? Well come on now, I haven’t got all day. Or perhaps I do. I’m not really sure how time works in the sense of a narration in type. A philosophical dilemma for another day though, because by now, I am going to assume that you have either read my previous entry or have stopped reading this one, in which case good riddance. Now for the rest of you who persisted, I will attempt to devote the remainder of my 398 words convincing you that, while everything I said was true, there is more to the story than just that. What am I left with… 241 words. Perfect, let’s begin.

            A person’s brain is nothing more than an organ conditioned by previous experiences, true, but ponder this. If all of your brain connections were mapped, and then inserted into a computer capable of processing that information at the same rate as the human nervous system, would that computer be you. Your initial instinct is probably to say no. Certainly that computer could not feel emotions like a human could. But let me counter that human emotion is nothing more than conditioning. Happiness is nothing more than a chemical response to stimuli that have been associated with positive outcomes. And, while a computer certainly could not feel happiness, it could recognize events that should elicit happiness, and even determine appropriate responses based on what you would do if you were happy.

            Now imagine a different scenario. Imagine you were cold. Again, the computer would not feel cold, but it could measure the temperature and determine based on a certain objective threshold if it should be cold or not. It could even know it should seek warmth. But the computer cannot be affected by the cold. If you try to utilize fine motor control while being substantially cold, you will notice that you are significantly impaired. Your muscles simply do not respond as well in the cold. It would take a very sophisticated computer to replicate that response, and it would certainly need more than a map of your brain.

            Now, let’s look at one final scenario. Imagine you are proficient at playing the piano. And if you actually are proficient at playing the piano, way to be talented. Now let us say that we mapped your brain as before, you then learned a new song on piano, and we mapped your brain again and compared that to your baseline. Theoretically, this comparison would teach the computer how to play the song you just learned. The problem, however, is that humans really are more than just brains. Humans are entire organisms.

As a brief aside, psychologists often debate over whether to find root causes of behavior or observe behavior in context in order to make predictions. While I am personally a proponent of the belief that given enough variables root causes are all you need, the fact of the matter is that we rarely have nearly enough variables to make such assertions. Therefore, the observation of gross behavior is really quite useful in the interim.

Back to my point, humans are more than just brains. How much of playing a piano is dictated by your brain, and how much is in the body itself. Certainly, the same brain controlling an adult would produce a different song than if it were controlling a child’s body. The notes might be the same but the manner in which the keys are pressed, the transitions between chords, the weight of the hands and feet on the keys and peddles would all be slightly different. So while a computer might be able to ascertain the notes in a song and the rhythm in which they should be played, it would never be able play that song quite the same as you would without your body.

            Alright, how did I do? Did I successfully unconvince you of what I had convinced you of last week? Or… if you were unconvinced last week, did I now convince you of what I failed to convince you of last week? The moral of this story is flexibility. Never be afraid to adopt a new view on life.

748 words. Not even close.

            -AMS